Typically, a customer goes to a retail store for a particular purpose, i.e., to purchase particular items or to find items that will satisfy particular needs. Once the customer enters the store, however, in addition to attempting to sell those specific items, the store has a financial incentive to induce the customer to purchase other items as well. Therefore, retail stores are greatly interested in packaging and display systems that will attract a customer's attention to other products it is selling.
The individual displays often are provided by the manufacturer or supplier of such products and, of course, those entities also have a significant financial incentive to attempt to increase impulse purchases of the displayed products. While the interests of the store, on the one hand, and the manufacturer or supplier, on the other, align in this respect, in other respects their interests are different. For example, although the manufacturer or supplier generally would like to obtain as much floor or wall space as possible for their products, the retail stores usually try to confine such space as much as possible, so that they can accommodate a greater variety of different products. Accordingly, display systems that provide the greatest marketing effect within the smallest amount of floor or shelf space are highly desirable.
A variety of different packaging and display systems exist. One of the most common uses a stiff, thin, clear plastic container, often configured as a “clamshell” package. The product is enclosed within a plastic package which is hinged along one edge, thus resembling a clamshell. During the packaging operation, the clamshell package is closed around or through the product, and the other three edges are sealed shut. One side of the clamshell package frequently is provided with a hole, so that the entire clamshell-packaged product can be hung in a kind of horizontal stack, together with identical items, from a horizontally extending rod.
While such packaging/display systems are useful for certain types of products, especially smaller products, they generally do not work well for larger products. For example, walking canes frequently are not packaged so that potential purchasers can hold them, try them and look at them closely. A common technique for displaying walking canes in a retail store is to simply place them into an umbrella holder, typically a canister with an open top. This arrangement does not afford the customers easy examination or evaluation of the product, let alone attracting their attention.